THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Tuesday, September 27, 1994 TAG: 9409270055
SECTION: DAILY BREAK PAGE: E9 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY SUE SMALLWOOD, STAFF WRITER
LENGTH: Medium: 67 lines
BRUTAL NOISE-ROCKERS Buzzoven are from Charlotte, live in Richmond and love Hampton Roads.
``We always have a good show every time we play there,'' said bassist Brian Hill from his capital city home. ``We've played Kings Head, like, 15 times.'' They even thank the Norfolk nightclub on their latest album, ``Sore.''
Buzzoven will appear at Hampton's Nsect Club tonight.
The fierce foursome make violently heavy rock that toes the line between thrash and industrial, merging scraping guitars and hostile vocals with virulent sound samples. The result is definitely not for the faint of heart.
``A lot of it comes from movies, radio clips, any kind of media,'' Hill said of Buzzoven's angry cut-and-paste samples. ``We use a lot live, too, at a volume that you can hear it between songs but you can't really hear it while we're playing. It's a constant noise factor.''
To capture the Buzzoven onslaught - heavily influenced by similarly vitriolic outfits like Corrosion of Conformity, Black Flag, Black Sabbath and Ministry, says Hill - for their second LP, the band holed up in a studio for nine days with producer Billy Anderson.
``It was fun but kind of scary,'' Hill recalled. ``They had an apartment above the studio, so we were locked in there 24 hours a day with access to record anytime we wanted to. But it was stuck in a really bad crack neighborhood in San Francisco. We could see prostitutes working right across from the studio.''
Anderson, who's also helmed outings from the Melvins, Sleep and Steel Pole Bath Tub, as well as Buzzoven's first LP, ``To a Frown,'' encouraged the band to exper-iment.
``He's got a lot of innovative ideas and gets certain sounds,'' Hill said. ``The way we recorded this album, we played live like we were playing a show. We set up a P.A. in the studio itself, with drums going back through that and live mikes too. We doubled-up tracks, which is pretty strange.''
Buzzoven has recorded a variety of releases for a fistful of independent labels in the band's four years of existence. The group's adventures in indie-land began when they heard a 7-inch single by Neurosis - with whom they'll be playing in Hampton - which happened to be the debut release of San Francisco-based Allied Recordings.
``Being big fans of Neurosis, we thought, `Hey, they might want to put something out,' '' Hill remembered. Allied liked the group's demo tape and hooked Buzzoven up with Anderson. A single, LP and EP on Allied followed.
After tons of touring, a performance at last year's College Music Journal convention (a hip music industry schmoozefest) brought Buzz-oven to the attention of aggressive indie record company Roadrunner (once affiliated with Emergo, the Waxing Poetics' label). Roadrunner released ``Sore'' this year.
Buzzoven performed last week as a Roadrunner act at this year's CMJ shindig in New York City (Caroline recording artists Combine, from Norfolk, also played at CMJ). And although Roadrunner's a decided step up from Allied, Buzz-oven can hardly be accused of selling out.
``A lot of our older fans who are into our older stuff, a few people seem a little bitter that we've signed to Roadrunner,'' Hill said. ``Roadrunner's been known as a real metal label, but they're starting to change with a few different experiments. I guess we're one of them.'' ILLUSTRATION: Photo
JESSE FISCHER/Roadrunner Records
Buzzoven, performing tonight at the Nsect Club in Hampton, is
touring behind a new album, ``Sore.''
by CNB